New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1887-05-25

Y,
just as you do two rods away
s1It's impossible said /. GU
don't understand anything about
the oversight and care that a great
farm needs if you think that
well, we could sell the farm you
know
s'sell the farmn" i cried, starting up.
"My fathers, my grandfather's, my
great-grandfather s."
.'Your Noah,s your Adam S.
How do you dare talk so to me,
Mark Myers, about my home!" ]
cried, more vexed and more
Il shouldn't think you had called
my home a prison and a dungeon, =
he retorted.
"Well, it is! the gloomiest, the
'Now hush, my darling; hush, you
little vixen" said Mark, laughing,
with his hands on my lips, cor you'll
say something you'll be sorry for"
you've said something you'll be
sorry for" cried calling me a
vixen. I may be a vixen, but
il you were a gentleman But
the Myerses always were tyrants,
and Pm glad I've found you out in
time-so calm and so cool, and so
fixed in your own way. And I'll new
er, never, go and live in your old pris-
on-house," | cried, growing an rier
and angrler, Heaven only knows why.
"And you may just whistle for your
dog, and go there yourself, and go
alone. never want to see your face
again." And before he could grasp
me and prevent me, I had flashed in
to the house, and had SHUT and bolt
ed the door.
He waited then; he waited, should
think, an hour. And I sat inside,
burning with anger, and with an un-
conscious sense OF shame, very likely,
and a bitter disappointment, and
a wild, unnamed fear. And at last he
rose slowly and looked at the win
dows, and turned away and called old
Roland, and went slowly down the lane.
And he never came back. 1 could
see him walking along, ever so slowly,
in the clear moonlight, with the dogs
nose in his hand, till the road turned
into the wood that mounted the hill.
And when he had gone l just threw
myself on the floor, and all but dis
solved in my mad tears. And I didn't
know what the tears were for-wheth-
er for fear of losing Mark, or for fear
Of losing my home, or for fear of Civ
ing up my will; but it seemed to me
that the end OF the world had as good
as come.
We were both orphans, we both had
these great properties, and we had
both better have been beggars.
That was June, and the full moon.
didn't sleep any that night hard
ly know why; a presentiment of evil
kept me waking, although I was so
tired. l remember that moon now,
hanging in the purple sky. with her
wide wings, like great boding ghost.
Every time I looked out, there she
was. By-and-by she began to brighten
me, and | shut her out, but lay awake
all the same, my mind in wild whirl.
The next evening, in the long after
glow of the sunset, I tripped down
the, lane to the wood, sure that l
should meet him, as I had always
done, on his way to me; but the shape
had been used to see bounding down
the path I did not see again. I went
close to the shadow Of the wood, but
only old Roland came and put his
| nose in my hand, and waited with me
while I waited, and went back with
| me little way when l went back. 1t
did not occur to me to think that
where Roland was his master was not
far distant. And I went down the
| lane no more.
After that, then. one day crept by,
! and another, and life continued in
the old way, and all the business of
the great farm thrived in the hands
! OF Bryan, the directing overseer, and
all seemed to be mere idleness. The
moving machines were humming all
day in the meadows, and the huge
| loads Of fragrant hay came laboring
| into the barns, and thunder-cloud
! made panics, and the lightning fell, as
it always did on the wet low grounds,
| and burned one Or two hay-stacks;
! and then the gundelows went down
the river for the salt hay, and came
back, days afterward, with their lark,
square sails set atop Of their square
loads OF thatch; and one by one all
| the concerns OF ripening and harvest
ing had their. season, and past, and
August was over. And Mark had
uCFCA OllC0 OCCH u = W GllS ldu0 6tSdlii,
and September had gone, and the
harvest-moon; and the hunters moon
had poured it's silver floods Of light
| out OF a great lonely heaven; and still
| Mark had never come.
I suppose Mrs. Wells, my next
neighbor, know all about it. And
Mrs. Sawyer, on the other side, Of
course knew all that AIRS. Wells did.
They were very good to me, and they
and the girls were always running in
to see me, Or sending for me to run in
and see them. / don't. think Twas
trying to carry things off with high
hand, and I know l wasn't hanging
my head and crying over what was
mot to be helped; I simply made up
my mind to the inevitable I was
never going to have Mark beside me
any more, and must endure it, and
get through life as well as could.
/ i had this farm on my hands, and all
\ -,